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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2025-4077</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A risk assessment framework for interacting tipping elements</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bara</surname>
<given-names>Jacques</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2857-3778</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wunderling</surname>
<given-names>Nico</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3566-323X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Barfuss</surname>
<given-names>Wolfram</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9077-5242</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, 53113 Bonn, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Transdisciplinary Research Area Sustainable Futures, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Center for Critical Computational Studies, Goethe-University Frankfurt, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Earth Resilience Science Unit, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, 14412 Potsdam, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Member of the Leibniz Association, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Institute for Food &amp; Resource Economics, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>02</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2025</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2025</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>26</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2025 Jacques Bara et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2025</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4077/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4077/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4077/egusphere-2025-4077.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4077/egusphere-2025-4077.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Tipping elements, such as the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic meridional ocean circulation (AMOC) or the Amazon rainforest, interact with one another and with other non-linear systems such as the El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In doing so the risk of any one element collapsing into a degraded state can be drastically affected, typically increasing due to the interactions. In this work, therefore, we propose a fully probabilistic network model for risk assessment of interacting tipping elements that coherently incorporates literature-based belief assessments of intra-element interactions. We provide analytic results for the equilibrium risks of nine interacting tipping elements, the existence and stability of their stationary distributions and convergence times to the equilibrium solution. Moreover we simulate their tipping risks until 2350 using emission pathways from the shared socio-economic pathways (SSP 1-1.9, 1-2.6, 2-4.5, 3-7.0, and 5-8.5). Compared to the hypothetical no-interactions case, we find that interactions tend to destabilise the climate system, for instance the coral reefs are likely to have collapsed by 2100 even under the most optimistic scenario (SSP1-1.9). The effects of interactions, however, are most noticeable after 2100, especially for the highest shared socio-economic pathways (SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5). In summary, our comprehensive risk assessment framework for tipping elements indicates that rapid mitigation is essential to keep temperatures as close as possible to 1.5 &amp;deg;C in the short term and below 1 &amp;deg;C in the longer run.</p>
</abstract>
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